The first thing President Teresa Sullivan of the University of Virginia needs to do in the wake of what now appears to be a faux rape scandal is to apologize to the victims – that is, to the members of Phi Kappa Psi, who have been vilified, forced to move off campus into motels, and suffered suspicions even from family members and close friends. That would be the human and moral response. That Sullivan will not do so is nearly as certain as the chance of her taking false accusations as a matter that needs university attention. This is for...

Teresa Sullivan, the president of the University of Virginia — the campus at the heart of the Rolling Stone magazine debacle over its since-debunked rape claim piece — has become the target of a Change.org petition that calls for her immediate firing. The petition has only gathered a few signatures so far, but its text is blunt. It reads: "University of Virginia president Teresa Sullivan vandalized our legal system by immediately assuming the guilt of innocent men after an anonymous accuser without evidence cried, 'Rape!' Sullivan suspended activities of all fraternities (not just the one fraternity the accuser mentions), and...

It was 1 a.m. on a Saturday when the call came. A friend, a University of Virginia freshman who earlier said she had a date that evening with a handsome junior from her chemistry class, was in hysterics. Something bad had happened. Arriving at her side, three students —“Randall,” “Andy” and “Cindy” as they were identified in an explosive Rolling Stone account — told The Washington Post that they found their friend in tears. Jackie appeared traumatized, saying her date ended horrifically, with the older student parking his car at his fraternity, asking her to come inside, and then forcing...

Teresa Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia, said all the right things when fraternity members at her school were accused of gang rape: she followed the PC playbook and nobody could fault her for missing her lines. She automatically assumed guilt, and was fast off the mark to let everyone know that the university opposed rape and stood with rape survivors (as if that was ever in doubt). She didn't wait for the facts, she dropped the presumption of innocence, and ran with the hounds. The wrongs described in Rolling Stone are appalling and have caused all of us...

While questions mount regarding the credibility of an account of an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity, police have yet to open a formal investigation. University officials have said—as recently as Dec. 2—that they have been instructed by police not to discuss the specific incident because it is the subject of a police inquiry. But TIME has learned that so far, that inquiry has not crossed the threshold for the Charlottesville Police Department to treat it as a criminal investigation. Because the alleged incident took place at a fraternity house off campus, it falls under the jurisdiction...

The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Houston man sentenced to death in the killing of a Houston Police Department officer. The court ordered a new trial for Alfred Dewayne Brown because of evidence withheld during his trial in 2005. Prosecutors said Brown and two other men were robbing a check-cashing store when they shot and killed the store clerk, Alfredia Jones, and then Officer Charles Clark, who responded to the scene. Brown claimed he was innocent and that he had an alibi that could prove it. He said he was at his girlfriend's house...

In March, I posted a long report on the Darryl Howard case. There’s a lot to this story, but here’s a quick and dirty summary: Howard was convicted in 1995 for murdering a woman and her 13-year-old daughter in a Durham public housing complex. Despite evidence that both women had been sexually assaulted, there was no physical evidence linking Howard to the crime scene. In post-conviction, Howard’s attorneys discovered a police memo describing a tip indicating that the murders were the work of a gang called the New York Boys. The tip seemed particularly reliable because it referred to the...

In the outpouring of praise for William D. Cohan's new book "The Price of Silence"—a work, remarkably enough, being celebrated as a model of evenhandedness, scrupulous objectivity, etc.—one essential has gone overlooked. Namely, the central point of this tale about the Duke lacrosse case and accusations against three players of rape and assault at a house party. It takes no close reading to see that the book is meant to recast the story so as to nullify the outcome Americans thought they knew—

The Duke lacrosse case was a spectacular scandal – a cause célèbre that had the country abuzz about race, class and gender. Three wealthy Duke students, all of them white, were charged with raping a poor black woman during a spring break party at a scruffy rental house in Durham. Then the whole mess imploded in real time, in the national media, due to prosecutorial misconduct. North Carolina, of all places in America, was perhaps the most fertile soil for a case that ended with the state attorney general declaring the three players innocent and state regulators disbarring the prosecutor,...

On August 25, 2006 the New York Times published a nearly 6,000-word, front-page analysis of the evidence in the case against the three lacrosse-playing students at Duke University who were charged with raping a prostitute who had been hired to dance at a party. The article conceded that holes had emerged in the case brought against them by Mike Nifong, the district attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina. But by presenting material in the light most favorable to Nifong’s claims and by excluding or diminishing the significance of key exculpatory evidence, the Times implied that a rape still might have occurred....

An innocent man who spent nearly a quarter century in prison for a murder he did not commit walked out of a Brooklyn courtroom with his freedom and his mother by his side Tuesday. Jonathan Fleming, now 51 years old, was in tears as he hugged his lawyers and family Tuesday after his conviction was thrown out by a judge. "I feel like the time I felt when he was born and the nurse bring him to me," said Patricia Fleming, the mother of the wrongly jailed man. "That's how happy I was." From the start, Fleming proclaimed his innocence...

Former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong has held his tongue since his career imploded in the Duke lacrosse case. But his thoughts are about to land in bookstores, at length and virtually unchallenged. “The Price of Silence: The Duke Lacrosse Scandal, The Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of Our Great Universities” is scheduled for publication April 8. The book – $35 in hardback, 650 pages long – bills itself as “the definitive, magisterial account” of a case that generated tens of thousands of news stories, countless blog posts, seemingly endless cable gabfests and a handful of books. Three...

When Darryl Howard was convicted of murder in 1995, he cried out ”I didn’t do it!” then sobbed in open court. He has maintained his innocence ever since. (snip) But for all his problems, there has never been much compelling evidence that Howard is a murderer. Howard was convicted of killing a woman named Doris Washington and her 13-year-old daughter Nishonda in November 1991. Despite indications that both women had been sexually assaulted, no DNA or biological evidence connected Howard to the crime scene. He was convicted entirely on eyewitness testimony, much of which was vague, contradictory, or later recanted....

Exclusive: John Rocker compares media coverage of accused QB vs. Duke athletes With each passing year, we regrettably get more stories of college athletes acting up and getting in trouble with the law. From armed robbery to rape, there appears to be no crime that college athletes aren’t capable of committing. Dominating the sports world right now is the story of a likely nominee for the Heisman Trophy standing accused of sexual assault. Jameis Winston is the star quarterback for the Florida State Seminoles, who are currently undefeated and ranked No. 1 out of all college teams in the country....

DURHAM Crystal Mangum was found guilty of second degree murder Friday in the death her boyfriend, Reginald Daye. In a quick-moving trial, jurors deliberated over four options: first-degree murder, guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of voluntary manslaughter or not guilty. That Mangum stabbed boyfriend Daye, 46, on April 3, 2011, was never in question. She admitted during the eight-day trial that she “poked” Daye with a knife in the side of the chest with a steak knife at his apartment, but she claimed she did it in self-defense while he was straddling her and trying to choke her. Daye told...

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Mark O'Mara said his legal fight with the people who tried to convict George Zimmerman is not over. On Friday, at a Tiger Bay Club luncheon in Orlando, O'Mara detailed the case that garnered national attention. Mark O'Mara described the struggle he said he went through to get evidence from the prosecution team of Bernie De La Rionda and State Attorney Angela Corey. He cited the picture of a bloodied Zimmerman, taken the night Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, as an example. "It is undeniable that they had a plan in mind, with the 15...

There is an aphorism to the effect that there is only a small difference between police and criminals, just as there is only a small difference between sheep dogs and wolves. It is that small difference, however, that distinguishes heroes from enemies of society. Sheep dogs and wolves are members of the same species, and both are physically and temperamentally capable of killing other animals. The key difference is, of course, that sheep dogs never harm the sheep they protect from the wolves. A police officer must, like the violent criminals he or she arrests, be similarly capable of handling...

There is an aphorism to the effect that there is only a small difference between police and criminals, just as there is only a small difference between sheep dogs and wolves. It is that small difference, however, that distinguishes heroes from enemies of society. Sheep dogs and wolves are members of the same species, and both are physically and temperamentally capable of killing other animals. The key difference is, of course, that sheep dogs never harm the sheep they protect from the wolves. A police officer must, like the violent criminals he or she arrests, be similarly capable of handling...

We’re working on figuring out why Judge Nelson wants Richard Conner kicked out ASAP. Using the “francining names” placed into trial records by Don West late last night we begin to find the unknown backstory. From them we make a remarkable discovery. Unbelievably, it appears Trayvon’s Dad, Tracy, was actually one of the people talking to Trayvon about buying and selling a handgun. Considering the “conversation was mysteriously deleted” this appears to be a big effen’ deal. WOW.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t4EKnS_1RHA Ronquavis “Qua” Fulton Spoonhead Zach Jay Ron Dario Diamond (probably Rachel Jeantel) But not about buying And THEN the THUNDERCLAP name...

10.30.12 - 08:41 pm By Ray Gronberg gronberg@heraldsun.com; 919-419-6648 DURHAM – A new court filing purporting to be from Crystal Mangum says she can supply evidence in a Duke lacrosse lawsuit that she was paid, up front, to set up Duke University’s 2005-06 men’s lacrosse team. The filing surfaced on Tuesday, a day after federal court clerks in Greensboro received it from the U.S. Postal Service. It was styled as a motion by Mangum, acting as her own lawyer, asking that she be allowed to intervene in the civil-rights lawsuit that exonerated lacrosse players David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade...

DURHAM – A historian who’s written about the Duke lacrosse case must answer questions from Duke University lawyers defending the school from lawsuits filed by two groups of former lacrosse players, a federal court in Maine says. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Rich III said Brooklyn College professor K.C. Johnson has to give Duke’s legal team a deposition and turn over documents about his dealings with the players. Johnson invoked a form of journalist’s confidentiality privilege as he fought Duke’s subpoena. Rich acknowledged that such claims can be valid, depending on how the interests in each case balance out. In this...

<p>Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman is suing NBC over the network’s botched editing of his 911 tape, Page Six can exclusively reveal. We hear Zimmerman’s attorneys are about to file a complaint against NBC and its top executives, naming news president Steve Capus and correspondent Ron Allen, who was the reporter on the scene for the broadcast on “Today” on March 27.</p>

. . . [Duke President Richard] Brodhead’s initial public statement said that people must uphold the presumption of innocence. But at a private meeting that included faculty members who signed the ad, he was excoriated for that statement . . . In a subsequent open letter to the Duke community, Mr. Brodhead canceled the lacrosse season, accepted the coach's resignation, and added several sentences about the evils of rape and the legacy of racism and misogyny. It made no reference to the lacrosse players' presumption of innocence. . . . In the end, justice was done, to some extent. North...

Florida prosecutor Angela Corey has come under withering criticism from Alan Dershowitz for overcharging and leaving out important details in the Affidavit of Probable Cause filed in connection with the charge of Second Degree Murder lodged against George Zimmerman. Corey allegedly responded by threatening to sue Dershowitz and Harvard. This appears to be part of a pattern when she is criticized. Now Corey has brought a charge of felony perjury against Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie, based on testimony during George’s bond hearing with regard to their financial resources. (Criminal Information and Affidavit of Probable Cause embedded at bottom of post.) There...

DURHAM -- Crystal Mangum’s attorney withdrew from her defense Tuesday, saying she had compromised the case by sharing information with supporters who rallied for her the same day. “The truth will set Crystal Mangum free,” said Sidney Harr, of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong, which held a press conference Tuesday morning outside the Durham County jail. Mangum, 33, is charged with the murder of Reginald Daye, 46. Police found Daye with one stab wound in the torso April 3 at Mangum’s 3507 Century Oaks Drive apartment. Mangum was charged with murder after Daye died April 13. She remains...

This happened last month, but I just learned of the case because the trial court decision was just posted on Westlaw; Cline is appealing the removal. The decision is here; a newspaper article on the subject is here; the statute authorizing the removal, N.C. Gen. Stats. § 7A-66(6), provides that a D.A. may be removed by a court for “[c]onduct prejudicial to the administration of justice which brings the office into disrepute.” ... partly because it comes on the heels of the ouster of D.A. Nifong — Cline was the first D.A. elected following Nifong’s ouster, and had worked for...

DURHAM - Tracey E. Cline, a prosecutor who crusaded for victims and pledged to always do right, was permanently removed Friday from her office as Durham's elected district attorney after a judge found she made false and reckless attacks on Durham's senior judge, tainting her ability to seek justice. Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood of Franklin County, who presided over the removal inquiry that began three weeks ago, dismissed Cline's claims of free speech protections and found she engaged in conduct "prejudicial" to the administration of justice which brought her office into "disrepute" in court documents filed against Superior...

The American public loves stories. It loves stories better than explicated truth, because stories entertain better. Ask Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Ask the Hofstra lads. And when the media gets something wrong, don't expect apologies or hand-wringing; there's just a rush to get on with the next story; because the truth would require so much explanation it would bore people and lose the audience. Now we have a murder committed in Virginia. Alcohol played a part. But too many people enjoy alcohol to focus on that; and besides, the media wouldn't want to come across as prudes. The defendant was a student...

LSU AD Alleva Deposed in Duke Lacrosse Suit Posted by: Walter Abbott on Saturday, February 4, 2012, 18:20 Louisiana State University (LSU) Athletic Director Joe Alleva was deposed last month in a lawsuit filed nearly five years ago regarding the notorious Duke Lacrosse Case, where a prostitute falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape. Alleva was Duke’s athletic director at the time and was famously quoted as telling lacrosse coach Mike Pressler as he was cancelling the team’s season that “It’s not about the truth anymore,” because of the intense media coverage of the controversy. Mike Nifong, the...

DURHAM -- District Attorney Tracey Cline was immediately suspended from office late Friday after a judge found probable cause that she has engaged in ongoing attacks on a Durham judge that are "prejudicial to the administration of justice" and bring her office into disrepute. Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood of Franklin County suspended Cline under a rarely used state law. He ordered a hearing for Feb. 13 to determine whether Cline will be permanently removed from the elected office she has held since 2009. Hobgood was not required to suspend Cline before next month's hearing, but he invoked that...

A judge today suspended Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline from her elected office, ruling that there is probable cause that Cline should be removed permanently. Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood of Franklin County set a hearing for Feb. 13 in which Cline will have a chance to defend her numerous court filings made over the past three months in a high-profile attack on Orlando Hudson, the senior judge in Durham. Hobgood was not required to suspend Cline before a hearing, but had the option under state law. Cline has been under scrutiny for her ongoing allegations against Hudson, allegations...

A lawyer for three members of Duke University’s 2005-06 men’s lacrosse team has subpoenaed the records of two public-relations companies Duke officials consulted in the course of dealing with false rape allegations a stripper made against the team. Durham attorney Bob Ekstrand has told federal judges information from the two firms, Burson-Marsteller and Edelman, is important to his clients’ civil-rights lawsuit against Duke because public-relations worries were central to the school’s response in 2006. “Duke’s media strategy drove its decision-making, including its decisions to deprive [players] of the procedural protections it promises to all of its students in connection with...

An extraordinary legal shouting match has broken out in Durham, N.C., between the county’s beleaguered local district attorney and its senior Superior Court judge, who has chastised the D.A. in open court. In a harshly worded court filing, Durham Dist. Atty. Tracey Cline accused Judge Orlando F. Hudson Jr. of "moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption" and complained that the judge "harbors animosity" toward her and has engaged in "retaliatory conduct" and "gross misconduct." Court filings are typically written in dry, obtuse legal argot. But Cline’s filing contains unusually accusatory and vituperative language replete with fractured syntax and spelling errors. She...

A Durham man who was set free by the state Court of Appeals over "repeated neglect" by Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the prosecutor, the police officers who handled his case, and the city of Durham. Frankie Washington alleges that the authorities who put him behind bars for nearly three years acted in "bad faith." The officers and Cline concealed evidence, the lawsuit alleges, and conspired to violate his rights under the state and U.S. constitutions. Cline and the police had a "reckless and callous disregard of public justice in this State," says the...

DURHAM – Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline and the editor of The News & Observer came to one agreement Wednesday evening – that they would participate in a forum at the N.C. Central University School of Law – but that was the only thing they agreed upon. Cline took out an ad in Sunday’s Herald-Sun to announce she was calling a Town Hall Meeting at the Durham County Courthouse to speak about a series of articles the Raleigh newspaper published about her last week. In the ad, she invited Andrew Curliss, the reporter who wrote the series, to attend....

First of three parts DURHAM - The final witness in the trial of Frankie Washington was his prosecutor, Tracey Cline. Cline had pursued charges against Washington for more than four years, accusing the handyman of burglary, robbery, kidnapping, assault and an attempted sex offense in a frightening West Durham home invasion. At the trial in late February 2007, Cline was in the witness box, an unusual spot for a longtime assistant district attorney. Washington's attorney, preparing for an appeal, wanted to question her about forensic tests on the evidence - a winter hat, a bandana, a pistol-grip shotgun and a...

DURHAM – Lawyers in two of Duke-lacrosse-case-spawned lawsuits are due in court Wednesday morning to try to resolve some of their disagreements about how to handle the exchange of depositions and documents. The pre-trial conference is a continuation of a process, guided by a federal magistrate judge, that began earlier this month. Duke University and lawyers for two groups of players are trying among other things to figure out where and how many people should be questioned in the course of gathering evidence on the players’ claims against the school. The players contend that Duke administrators breached confidentiality promises and...

Complications from a "gaping" stab wound led to the death of a Durham man in April, according to an autopsy report released Friday. Crystal Mangum, 32, the Durham woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape in 2006, is charged with murder in the man's death. Police have said that Reginald Daye, 46,was stabbed with a kitchen knife during an April 3 argument at his apartment, at 3507 Century Oaks Drive. He died 10 days later. According to the autopsy report, the stab wound punctured Daye's left lung and tore through his diaphragm, stomach, colon, left kidney...

Casey Anthony. The name and the trial spark emotion. But there is a far deeper issue lurking beneath, a monster of much greater importance. Recent years have borne witness to the rampant rise of prosecutorial zeal in the courts. While no responsible citizen wants crime unpunished, prosecutors, in all their forms, have been growing in power and influence. When prosecutorial power teams up with political ambition or a high-reaching career path, we must watch carefully the potential threat to individual liberty.

Never come between the "Godmother of Soul" and her luggage. That's the lesson a West Point cadet says he learned at Houston airport when he charges Patti LaBelle's security guards roughed him up. Richard King, 23, is suing LaBelle over the incident, captured on surveillance video last March 11 at Bush Intercontinental Airport. King, a Houston resident who is a senior at the military academy, had come home for spring break when he wandered close to LaBelle's limousine. He was talking to his brother on his cellphone when her bodyguards "sprang into action," according to the civil suit he filed...

Saturday, May 28, 2011 Catalino Hat Trick Propels Maryland Maryland upset Duke, 9-4, in this evening's national semi-final; the list of the Terps' top stars included senior Grant Catalino, who scored three goals, including goal that broke the game open in the third quarter, when Maryland led 5-3. The last name should be somewhat familiar to those who followed the lacrosse case closely. [snip]

A grand jury has indicted Crystal Mangum in the murder of her boyfriend Reginald Daye. She was accused of stabbing her boyfriend, Reginald Daye, during an argument. Police were dispatched to 3507 Century Oaks Drive at 3:15 a.m. April 3, and found Daye stabbed in the torso. Daye, 46, died last Wednesday at Duke Hospital, police spokeswoman Kammie Michael has said. Mangum, the woman at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal five years ago, is in the Durham County jail. She originally faced a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury....

Durham, N.C. — Family members of a man who was stabbed in his home April 3 say he died Wednesday evening. Crystal Mangum, the Durham woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape in 2006 has been charged with assaulting him. Durham police could not be reached for comment on whether her charges would be upgraded. Mangum, 32, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and was being held in the Durham County jail on a $300,000 bond. Police said Mangum stabbed Reginald Daye, 46, in the torso with...

DURHAM (WTVD) -- Police say former Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum was arrested again overnight. Authorities say Mangum was arrested Saturday night and is being charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit robbery and inflicting serious injuries. Mangum is being held at the Durham County Jail with no bond. She will make her first apperance in court on Monday. Police have not released any further information on the arrest. snip

CONCLUSION Having undertaken this comprehensive review of the 41 claims asserted in this case against the various 50 Defendants, the Court concludes that the Motions to Dismiss will be granted in part and denied in part as set out herein. In summary, Counts 1, 2, and 5 will go forward under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged constitutional violations. The claims asserted in Counts 1 and 2 are asserted pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment for unlawful searches and seizures without probable cause based on the Non-Testimonial Order and Search Warrant that...

Many readers will remember the infamous Duke Lacrosse case of five years ago when Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong falsely charged three lacrosse players from Duke University with rape. What made the case extraordinary, however, were not the charges per se, but the fact that they were transparently false, and yet the mainstream media and the Duke administration and much of its vaunted faculty ignored the evidence to proclaim that they were true. In the end, the case fell apart because Nifong was caught lying, and the accuser, a prostitute named Crystal Mangum couldn’t keep her stories straight. (And...

Published Wed, Feb 23, 2011 04:03 PM Modified Wed, Feb 23, 2011 04:05 PM Duke settles suit over costs of lacrosse scandal DURHAM Duke University has settled a lawsuit against its insurance company over costs associated with the Duke lacrosse scandal. The National Union Fire Insurance Co., an affiliate of insurance giant AIG, and Duke had been wrangling over whether the company should reimburse the university for costs tied to the confidential settlements of lawsuits with three former lacrosse players and the former lacrosse coach. Duke agreed to dismiss the suit, and each party will pay its own attorneys fees....

Dear Sheriff Dupnik: My name is Mike Nifong. You may not know of me, but I was once was a liberal democrat prosecutor from Durham County, North Carolina. I am writing, because I have seen you on the television over the last few days making serious allegations against people claiming they were, in part, responsible for a hideous crime without a shred of evidence to support such a charge. I know you would like nothing more than to smear these people in the hopes of advancing a political agenda—and believe me when I tell you a more understanding supporter of...

Superior Court Judge Abe Jones has declared a mistrial on the felony arson charge in the Crystal Mangum trial. The jury was split 9-3. The jury was unanimous regarding the misdemeanor charges. Mangum was found guilty on three counts of child abuse, one for injury to personal property and one for resisting arrest. During today's proceedings, former Durham city councilwoman and school board member Jackie Wagstaff was jailed for ten days for contempt of court in the Crystal Mangum arson trial. She was charged with contempt after saying "This is ridiculous" while the judge was ordering the jury back into...